Ennahda, although originally inspired by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood but now says it is closer to Turkey’s ruling AKP led by Recep Erdogan, was already in an alliance with the center left Congress for the Republic (CPR), which has also done well in the polls.
Expected to command a joint majority in the new constituent assembly, the two could go it alone in forming a new government.
Ennahda party has taken the lead in early official results, with 15 of 39 seats in five polling districts, including the cities of Sousse and Sfax.
However, speaking to Arab News on Tuesday before the results were formally announced, Ennahda’s official spokesman and head of its political bureau, Noureddine Bhiri, said it wanted to include not only parties that had won seats on the assembly “but also those that had not.”
That is seen as a lifeline to Ennahda’s other ally prior to the elections, the neo-Maoist Communist Workers’ Party (PCOT). It appears to have failed to be elected.
Bhiri’s statement is also a clear indication that Ennahda wants Tunisia’s government for the next year to be a broad as possible.
“We have long supported the need of a large national coalition of all parties.” Moreover, he said, in the elections “we all won.”
Bhiri, who was the first to win one of the 10 seats up for grabs under proportional representation in the capital’s low-income constituency of Ben Arous, said negotiations with other parties had been taking place even before the elections.
It was now waiting to see how they responded to the offer of a grand coalition
On Tuesday afternoon, however, less than an hour after Arab News spoke to Bhiri, the leader of the Progressive Democrat Party (PDP) that his party would not join.
“Ennahda has called for a coalition government. We do not see any necessity to participate,” PDP leader Najib Chebbi said in a local radio interview.
The rejection was not unexpected.
On Monday, PDP officials told Arab News that Ennahda was keen on a grand coalition purely because it was afraid of being blamed for the country’s economic difficulties, notably poverty and massive unemployment, in a year’s time when elections to the new legislature take place.
Although the purpose of the constituent assembly elected on Sunday is to devise a new constitution, it will be able to appoint a new president, pass laws and approve budgets.
However, the new constitution has to be ready within a year when there have to be fresh elections to whatever legislature it formulates.
Asked whether an Ennahda-led coalition would be able to have an impact on the economy within this limited timescale, Bhiri was confident.
“We will do it, inshallah,” he said. “It is an obligation to make a difference.”
That may not be easy at the best of times, but Ennahda has an extra handicap in the form of concern, domestic and international, over its political agenda.
On Monday, the Tunisian stock market reacted to the part’s win by dropping 1.5 percent over fears about future investment and the country’s vital tourism industry. This drew a hurried response from the party that it “would like to reassure our trade and economic partners, and all actors and investors: We hope very soon to have stability and the right conditions for investment in Tunisia.”
Bhiri made the same point. “We are for investment. We want a free economy,” he said. Tunisia needs large-scale investment if it is to ensure economic growth and political stability.
He also sought to reassure those who imagined there was secret agenda to take Tunisia down a doctrinaire Islamic path.
Ennahda believed in a civil society where all are equal before the law, he said, regardless of belief, appearance or views.
“The party respects fundamental personal liberties, he said, including divorce by both man and women though court proceedings. There would be no return to polygamy and no introduction of Shariah law.”
Asked what then made Ennahda a specifically Islamic party, given that it had no intentions of introducing Sharia law, he said Islam underpinned the party’s values.
“We are for liberty, equality and fraternity,” he said, referring to the principles that most people view has having come out of the 1789 revolution in France, the country that used to be Tunisia’s former colonial master and whose political philosophies pervade so much of Tunisian society.
But in Ennahda’s case, the notions of liberty, equality and fraternity “flow from our religion,” he said. The party believes in freedom of religion he insisted. “We are for all believers - and non-believers too,” he added.
The other factor that makes Ennahda specifically Islamic, he said, is that it will not do anything that goes against Islam.
So would an Ennahda-led government change the current weekend of Saturday and Sunday and make Friday the main day off, as is the case in most other Arab countries. No, he said, smiling.
“We’re happy with the way it is.”
Islam apart, what then was different about Ennahda’s program given that most of the parties in the election were offering a social democrat agenda?
Bhiri pointed to two key objectives. Ennahda wants a parliamentary democracy with a figurehead president. It also favors decentralization, with more decision-making going to the provinces. Given the party’s commanding position in the new constituent assembly, these clearly will happen.
As to what makes Ennahda different from Turkey’s AKP or Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, that was simple.
“We’re a party that is totally Tunisian. We’re proud to be Tunisians.”
Its practice comes from Tunisian experiences.
In reality, there was nothing new in anything Bhiri said.
A coalition government, no change in the laws defending personal liberties, the freedom to worship or not: All been set out time and again.
At the very same time Bhiri was speaking to Arab News in Tunis, the head of Ennahda’s list in northern France was saying the same to reporters there.
“We’ve said it before and during the elections, and we are repeating it afterward, we will work with all sides, with all political forces,” Ameur Larayedh declared.
“We will be looking to guarantee all public and, especially, individual freedoms - freedom of thought, expression and organization.”
But it may be the coalition that proves the biggest difficulty. Ennahda’s closest allies, the center left CPR and the neo-Maoist PCOT make strange bedfellows. “An unnatural alliance” said a PDP official on Monday.
Ennahda’s headquarters are in a modern office block on a bend in Elissa Street in the city’s up-market Montplaisir district.
Also known as Dido, Elissa was the legendary Phoenician princess who fled Tyre 2,800 years ago and founded Carthage, the predecessor of modern Tunis.
It is, surely, purely a coincidence that Ennahda regards itself as a foundation stone for a new Tunisia. But across the street from the party building is the perhaps more ominously named Café Babel. It remains to be seen whether the coalition Ennahda seeks will be turn out to be as chaotic as the tower after which the café is named.
